Infinity
by KatTheGracefulKlutz
Summary: They stared at each other for what should have been infinity. / Steve, Bucky, Tony, and Peter's thoughts after the snap, when none of them are ready to say goodbye.


**I wrote this for class awhile back and decided to post it. Have... fun, I guess?**

Had they won? Had they stopped the fate they were so sure they would not be able to prevent? Had they truly defeated the mad titan with a swing of an axe and the vengeance for a brother long lost to Valhalla?

Bucky let out a quiet gasp at the unexpected pain in his arm. He grit his teeth, looking down with the intent to make the pain go away. That was the exact moment that he realized what was happening: Thanos had achieved his sinister goal. They had lost.

"Steve?" It was just a word, really. But it was so much more than that, and he hated just how broken it sounded. It was the name of the man who was his lifelong best friend. The man who he protected throughout their youth, and as they grew older, the roles evened out. It was the man who had saved him, time and again, from a fate worse than death. It was the man who he had slowly but surely fallen in love with.

Steve looked up, and they stared at each other for infinity. The blonde's eyes were wide with terror for his best friend, the man whom he had loved and lost again and again. _He wasn't going to lose him. Not this time_.

Everything hurt terribly, but he wasn't going to show it. He had to remain strong, if for nobody else, then for Steve. And as fast as the snap of fingers that had caused it, everything just... faded.

Steve stared at the spot where his best friend stood just seconds ago. It wasn't possible. That couldn't have happened. And yet it did, and there was no way to go back. Slowly, the Captain knelt down, pressing his gloved fingers to the ash that lay on the ground. _No_.

He was too shocked to move, let alone scream or cry. " _Bucky!"_ Steve winced, his own scream of agony from over seventy years ago ringing painfully in his ears. _Not again._

Wakanda was stilled by the silent screams of the dead.

Infinity

An eternity away, on the planet Titan, was an unlikely combination of six people. No, make that seven. The girl with blue skin and a grudge had joined the fight, coming out of nowhere. She fought valiantly, but as always, there has to be a winner. Sometimes the winner wasn't the one everybody rooted for.

Six again… five… four…

"There was no other way." the man in the cape—excuse me, cloak—said, before he was lost to the darkness.

Peter was scared out of his mind, downright terrified. Everyone else had been turned to ash, and he feared he was next. Even worse, he feared _Tony_ was. He couldn't bear to lose another mentor, another father figure. He had already lost _two_ , wasn't that enough?

He felt it coming a mile away, and the first thing he realized was that it _burned_. "Mr. Stark," he managed, stumbling over to the man. "I don't feel so good…"

The look in the older man's eyes was one of utter terror. He wasn't about to lose his kid. "You're alright," Tony said, more to himself than to Peter. Whatever this was, he wasn't going to let it take Peter. Peter was the last thing he had left. Peter was the kid that had started off as a curiosity, and slowly wormed his way into the billionaire genius's heart. He couldn't lose him, not now.

"I don't—I don't know what's happening." The teen latched onto Tony, grasping onto him desperately, almost as if he could save him. All he knew was that everything hurt. All he knew was that he thought the man he loved like a father could save him. "I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go…"

Tony didn't know what to do. His son was dying in his arms and there was nothing he could do to stop it, no matter how tightly he held on and no matter how loudly he wanted to scream.

"Sir, please, please, I don't wanna go." Peter choked, his eyes welled with tears, there was a lump in his throat bigger than the planet itself, yet he was holding back his emotions as well as he could.

"I don't wanna go." Somehow they ended up on the ground. The weight got uneven, and they fell together, because Tony would rather die than let go of Peter. _He wasn't going to let go_. "I'm sorry," he whispered. He was sorry for coming, for causing so much stress, for failing to get the gauntlet from Thanos before Quill had lashed out, he was just… sorry.

But God, _no_ he had nothing to be sorry for. Tony refused to let him be sorry for _anything_ , regardless of what it was or why. Peter didn't get to be sorry because he had done nothing wrong. He had done nothing to deserve this, he was just a kid, he hadn't even finished high school yet.

It hurt, it hurt so damn bad. It was as if flames were devouring Peter's skin; It burned like nothing had burned him before, worse than when he had been surrounded by flames when he fought the Vulture. It hurt, and he wanted to cry, and he just wanted to be hugged, to be told he would be okay, to know that he would be. But alarms were going off in his head, screaming _DANGER, DANGER, DANGER_. Having a spider-sense wasn't always a good thing. The alarms were blaring, the fire was blazing, and the tears were being shed. Was he screaming? The young superhero couldn't tell.

 _His vision blurred, but through the obscurity came a figure. And there he was, his very own Uncle Ben, reaching out to him, smiling, beckoning him. How sweet it would be to see him again…_

And just like that, the boy that had become Tony's entire world was _gone_ , as he joined the billions more in the land of the dead; his body turned to ash like it was nothing.

The universe was a cruel place. Maybe he deserved it. Maybe it was for all the things he had done before he became Iron Man. Maybe it was God come to punish him for his sins.

Or maybe it was a mad titan, hellbent on having his way.

He was going to die for this, Tony would make sure of it.

 **End**


End file.
